What I didn't like about writing for Medium wasn't just the shifting pay rates but the idea that the algorithm wasn't giving me access to the people I was most interested in (which was why I had to subscribe to them by e-mail as a default). I also felt that what I wrote about and was interested in writing about were not priorities for the management, a fact confirmed when I was capriciously banned from the site.
There's a lot less of that at Substack- I chiefly only get read by the people who subscribe to my accounts and share my posts with their subscribers, and I like that better. And when I am occasionally given funds for a paid subscription, it comes from the subscriber's own pocket and not the mythical community chest they have at Medium- which is even more important.
Initially, I just wanted to get back to writing the same sort of things I wrote as a syndicated newspaper columnist. I missed that so much after being laid off from a newspaper.
Honestly, the prospect of earning another $100 per month was a big draw and I hoped to get there. We were living on so little money at that point. An extra $100 would cover (in those days, not now!) a couple week's worth of groceries.
I'm making more than that on Medium now, and it's helping so much. I'm thrifty, and reaching a thousand bucks some months has been a real game-changer for my household.
But at this point, I have a new dream. Will my audience on Medium and Substack buy my books? I've released the paperback of The Trailer Park Rules and the ebook is on pre-order -- I'm hoping to sell enough paperbacks in advance to get some reviews and attention to help the launch of the ebook. We shall see. Will anybody besides my family and friends buy this book? I'm quite anxious to find out. If not, well, maybe I'll get a job at Taco Bell. The pay rate is about what I made as the editor of a daily newspaper!
(My Substack, Untrickled, is available free, and I make this offer to readers on this platform. If you want to read The Trailer Park Rules but cannot afford to buy it, send me an email at michelleteheux@gmail.com, and put The Trailer Park Rules in the subject line. I will send you a free copy via Bookfunnel. I want people to be able to read it whether they have money or not.
I had to learn how to train the algorithm and not be a looker loo.
I’m really curious so I saw some stories about people earning their first money on Medium. I was thinking about joining the Partner Program so I read some of that article. Then I saw someone complaining about earnings and I wondered why. The next wrote one story everyone liked and it went viral. I was curious.
Soon all I got sent was how Tom, Dick, and Blowjob made their first buck.
I had to go to Philosophy and read three enjoyable stories, then over to books and a story about Narnia, over to basketball and read a coach’s philosophy and then into my followers and randomly pick widespread professions.
Finally the algorithm understood this gal’s high maintenance just keep shovelling her the best of the best.
As far as money goes. I’m retired and I’m learning like I’m in kindergarten - it’s keeping me vibrant and passionate. To me that is priceless. But I’d never want to date an algorithm- imagine an AI kiss.
I've noticed most of my favorite writers on Medium have stopped writing there. I've moved to writing mostly on Substack. Money isn't the issue for me. Medium is just too big and chaotic. Substack feels smaller and simpler. You get everything written just by the writers you want. Old school. Nice.
Also, Medium is a piecework economy that incentivizes people to write more to earn more. The quality of writing suffers as a result. Substack is a subscription model where people pay because they want to read what you write, not how much you write.
I see Medium as fun money. I get to write what I want on Medium which can be refreshing after a lot of freelance work or coaching work. I regularly make good money on Medium, but I never rely on it. To be a working writer you really do need to have more tools up your sleeve than being able to write a good Medium story. Freelancing, pitching stories to editors, ghostwriting, copywriting, writing novels--I think most working writers make a living from a collage of different types of writing.
I spend a lot of time on the topics pages and I think a lot of writers just aren't using the tags correctly. I'll go through "racism" and "black lives matter" and "culture." This is a way to filter down the number of articles that we have to look at. It's rarely more than 50 or so a day on those tags, sometimes not even that much. Also, you can scroll on by a LOT of them without even clicking on them. Bad titles and bad featured images are instant disqualifications (you'll know what I mean if you scroll through the topics pages). The reason I'm mentioning this is that I feel it is possible to be seen by curators using keywords, and that's only one ways of getting your work seen. I'll have to write some more tutorials on this.
As for a "plan," I'm just using the various platforms to build a reader base. Then, I'll publish the fairy books I've written for my kids :)
Hey Linda, I've been taking writing courses with Tim Denning and Todd Brison, as well as Ayodeji, and my views on making money from writing have changed completely. I think wanting to monetize our own stories, whether via Patreon, Medium, Substack, Ghost, some Webnovel contracts, etc. is just too hard for most of us. Most folks earn a miniscule amount that will never cover our rent and food. Some people can do it, yes, but they are in the minority.
Instead, what I've come to believe, is that it's better to do freelance work. It doesn't have to be writing things we don't care about or hate. We could have some selectivity. Freelance writing (copywriting, ghost writing, content writing, etc.) is only one option. Freelance editing, book coaching, teaching writing workshops, or being a guest speaker, are some other options. While it's not easy to build a big client base with freelancing, it's still way more doable than trying to make a livable wage from sites like Medium (for most of us).
It felt sad to me that we cheer over a mere $100 for a boosted article, when a freelance editor could earn that amount or more from editing for 2 hours, for instance. A coach could earn way more than a $100 (depending on what they charge) from doing a 1-hr private coaching session. It doesn't have to be several thousand bucks. It could just be $250, for instance.
I'm aiming to do fiction book coaching, and am taking a course for fiction book coaches. This will also include beta reading and sensitivity reading for me. I didn't even know we could be paid for this until now. I've been doing this work for free for years, lol.
Anyway, I know others may disagree, but I'd rather do something lower risk and higher reward like freelancing. I want to tell my fellow writers, that there is no shame whatsoever in teaching, coaching, editing, or freelance writing to make a living. You can always find clients and genres/ subject matters that you enjoy working with. It doesn't have to feel like drudgery. Again, I know this is all easier said than done. But it's still easier than trying to make it big on Medium, and consistently earn enough each month on Medium to pay the bills.
Freelancing could pay much more than just your bills, depending on how established you become. Why settle for mere survival? I feel like Medium has trained us to expect less and value our work less. Despite good intentions. I agree that Medium should be seen as a bonus, rather than a main source of income. Medium sure feels comfortable, but sadly, staying in our comfort zone will not bring home the bacon.
I once had hopes of building a respectable income stream from writing but I realize that it's not going to work. I have zero interest in niche writing because it would become boring and burdensome to me. I used to get paid to write in FTE jobs (with benefits) and that was worth putting up with the boredom of writing about what my employer dictated, but what I've been able to make on my own isn't worth the trade off.
I'm on Substack but so infrequently now that it probably looks like I've quit. There are only so many subscriptions people can afford, so even if I was.churning out consistent quality content I can't imagine a world in which people would choose me over Stephen Fry.
I've thought about writing plays or novels and although it's appealing to think about, I've yet to keep the momentum going long enough to finish any project I start. I have to think about where I go from here. I went through a period of anger and resentment about my experience with Medium, but I've come to realize that it's like complaining about the weather. There's nothing I can do about it, so I either venture forth or stay home.
I left Medium for many reasons. Lack of potential income, and lack of visibility among them. But, I looked around, did some research for a few months and came up with a plan that I'm happy with, and continues to evolve with transmedia storytelling. Here's my plan, laid out before I discovered transmedia storytelling...
(I think it was Michael La Ronn who first gave me the core of the idea for this, but I’ve read so much in the past year on platform creation that I can’t say with certainty if it was him)
Someone (maybe Michael La Ronn, maybe Russell Nohelty?I can’t remember) once said something to the effect of, "Imagine you have a hypothetical workshop in which you are building a stool. It has 3 legs that will support that goal. Break down what those legs are and how you'll reach for them." I know the stool analogy has been overdone, but hear me out. The stool is your platform…how you get your message out. In fiction, your “message” is made up of your stories. The legs of your stool are how you get your message or stories out into the world.
Instead of 3 legs, my stool has 4.
* YouTube
* Substack
* Novel Series & short stories & serial fiction
* Ko-fi
Ko-fi plays into my overall vision by offering supporters a place where they can support my writing once, or as they can afford it, rather than being locked into paying a specific rate like on Substack, or Patreon. I like the choice that Ko-fi provides folks that can't afford or want to pay yearly. It also provides me a place to sell future worldbuilding guides, essay collections, and short story anthologies set in Uclandia, rather than just on Amazon. (I won’t go into all the places I sell to through Draft2Digital that don’t lend themselves easily to that kind of content) I’m also exploring releasing fiction serials through subscription-based Ream.
Essentially, I wanted to earn an income through Medium, so I was testing the platform out in my first year. While there have been moments where I earned a good amount (when I got boosted), it is pretty inconsistent. Even this year, my numbers have been low. I’m still thinking of writing on Medium, but I may have to look elsewhere to find another income stream. Writers need to eat too lol.
Great article Linda . . . I've been meaning to get started on Substack, but I haven't come up with a name for my "niche" which (on your suggestion) would probably do better than something titled "Patricia's musings." In any event, I was never hoping to make a ton of money on Medium. First year was $500 (Woo-Hoo!). I won't say what second year was (it was less). I hoped to supplement my income from my "day job," and make some connections. Medium has more than satisfied that hope! I'm made good friends on Medium (who wudda thought?): Helen Cassidy Page and I meet for brunch regularly, I'm meeting Melinda Blau in New York next week. Others I banter back-and-forth with (isn't it nice that we can end sentences with a preposition now? - As of February this year, Merriam Webster says we can!) You are definitely one of the writers whose writing I admire most! So I have a question: Can I move stories from Medium to Substack?
My current plan: Editing & Boosting on medium, and writing on Substack.
I love the Boost program (and tbh, it pays better than anything else I've ever done on Medium), and I love working with writers to help tell their stories. But for my own work? Substack is a much better place to have planted my flag.
The most difficult aspect of writing to corral is predictability. If I write good consistent prose and stick to high standards can I make a living at this or at least some money? For me the answer has been yes, no and maybe. The reason is that writing is only one side of the equation. The marketplace is another huge factor that is always changing. Readers are within the marketplace and their tastes vary month to month. The platforms we write on is another factor. They are all profit driven and will make changes that affect their bottom line as well as ours, and we don't really have a say in it. We try to adapt. How to bring more control into this area is always a good plan.
I made a profit last year, for the first time, as a writer. I was thrilled. Medium.com was most of it. I'll stay. I like the platform. I also like the way I feel gently "reigned in" by you. I want stuff right now; Ariel gets aggravated at me. I have to remember: we're all in this together, so relax. It will happen.
Your post is great addition to stories about writing on Medium, and why so many of us find it a complete waste of time. I wrote about that here: https://medium.com/@christopherlancette/is-writing-on-medium-mostly-a-complete-waste-of-time-yes-7d8fd12ffbab. I haven't written in ages and see no reason to ever bother again. I've taken the time wasted on Medium and spent it on writing for and pitching mainstream media and literary journals -- both of which are such a better use of my time. You and one other writer are the only reason I haven't cancelled Medium. I read your stuff but that's it. But I do agree with you that if Medium is just an unpaid hobby for people, it may be a good use of time for them. For the rest of us, no. I keep letting my monthly bill renew because it's so cheap as to be irrelevant, and I think maybe I could use the platform to promote my writing from real media outlets, but I haven't bothered. Every minute I waste here is a minute I could be spending trying to write for real media outlets.
What I didn't like about writing for Medium wasn't just the shifting pay rates but the idea that the algorithm wasn't giving me access to the people I was most interested in (which was why I had to subscribe to them by e-mail as a default). I also felt that what I wrote about and was interested in writing about were not priorities for the management, a fact confirmed when I was capriciously banned from the site.
There's a lot less of that at Substack- I chiefly only get read by the people who subscribe to my accounts and share my posts with their subscribers, and I like that better. And when I am occasionally given funds for a paid subscription, it comes from the subscriber's own pocket and not the mythical community chest they have at Medium- which is even more important.
Initially, I just wanted to get back to writing the same sort of things I wrote as a syndicated newspaper columnist. I missed that so much after being laid off from a newspaper.
Honestly, the prospect of earning another $100 per month was a big draw and I hoped to get there. We were living on so little money at that point. An extra $100 would cover (in those days, not now!) a couple week's worth of groceries.
I'm making more than that on Medium now, and it's helping so much. I'm thrifty, and reaching a thousand bucks some months has been a real game-changer for my household.
But at this point, I have a new dream. Will my audience on Medium and Substack buy my books? I've released the paperback of The Trailer Park Rules and the ebook is on pre-order -- I'm hoping to sell enough paperbacks in advance to get some reviews and attention to help the launch of the ebook. We shall see. Will anybody besides my family and friends buy this book? I'm quite anxious to find out. If not, well, maybe I'll get a job at Taco Bell. The pay rate is about what I made as the editor of a daily newspaper!
(My Substack, Untrickled, is available free, and I make this offer to readers on this platform. If you want to read The Trailer Park Rules but cannot afford to buy it, send me an email at michelleteheux@gmail.com, and put The Trailer Park Rules in the subject line. I will send you a free copy via Bookfunnel. I want people to be able to read it whether they have money or not.
Link to book for more info: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTHT43L9
I had to learn how to train the algorithm and not be a looker loo.
I’m really curious so I saw some stories about people earning their first money on Medium. I was thinking about joining the Partner Program so I read some of that article. Then I saw someone complaining about earnings and I wondered why. The next wrote one story everyone liked and it went viral. I was curious.
Soon all I got sent was how Tom, Dick, and Blowjob made their first buck.
I had to go to Philosophy and read three enjoyable stories, then over to books and a story about Narnia, over to basketball and read a coach’s philosophy and then into my followers and randomly pick widespread professions.
Finally the algorithm understood this gal’s high maintenance just keep shovelling her the best of the best.
As far as money goes. I’m retired and I’m learning like I’m in kindergarten - it’s keeping me vibrant and passionate. To me that is priceless. But I’d never want to date an algorithm- imagine an AI kiss.
I've noticed most of my favorite writers on Medium have stopped writing there. I've moved to writing mostly on Substack. Money isn't the issue for me. Medium is just too big and chaotic. Substack feels smaller and simpler. You get everything written just by the writers you want. Old school. Nice.
Also, Medium is a piecework economy that incentivizes people to write more to earn more. The quality of writing suffers as a result. Substack is a subscription model where people pay because they want to read what you write, not how much you write.
I see Medium as fun money. I get to write what I want on Medium which can be refreshing after a lot of freelance work or coaching work. I regularly make good money on Medium, but I never rely on it. To be a working writer you really do need to have more tools up your sleeve than being able to write a good Medium story. Freelancing, pitching stories to editors, ghostwriting, copywriting, writing novels--I think most working writers make a living from a collage of different types of writing.
It's all a matter of what people expect from Medium. If some expect Medium to pay their bills, they will be disappointed.
I was in the same boat. But now, I don't expect Medium to pay me significant income.
That made all the difference. I write on Medium to voice my opinion about teaching, business, side hustles, or anything.
What helped me see that fact is I have a full-time job, and I make money from other side hustles. Medium is not my bread and butter.
I don't expect much from Medium, so I’m okay when I receive $10 - $20 monthly for my writing. It's all a matter of expectations.
Great piece, Linda.
I spend a lot of time on the topics pages and I think a lot of writers just aren't using the tags correctly. I'll go through "racism" and "black lives matter" and "culture." This is a way to filter down the number of articles that we have to look at. It's rarely more than 50 or so a day on those tags, sometimes not even that much. Also, you can scroll on by a LOT of them without even clicking on them. Bad titles and bad featured images are instant disqualifications (you'll know what I mean if you scroll through the topics pages). The reason I'm mentioning this is that I feel it is possible to be seen by curators using keywords, and that's only one ways of getting your work seen. I'll have to write some more tutorials on this.
As for a "plan," I'm just using the various platforms to build a reader base. Then, I'll publish the fairy books I've written for my kids :)
Hey Linda, I've been taking writing courses with Tim Denning and Todd Brison, as well as Ayodeji, and my views on making money from writing have changed completely. I think wanting to monetize our own stories, whether via Patreon, Medium, Substack, Ghost, some Webnovel contracts, etc. is just too hard for most of us. Most folks earn a miniscule amount that will never cover our rent and food. Some people can do it, yes, but they are in the minority.
Instead, what I've come to believe, is that it's better to do freelance work. It doesn't have to be writing things we don't care about or hate. We could have some selectivity. Freelance writing (copywriting, ghost writing, content writing, etc.) is only one option. Freelance editing, book coaching, teaching writing workshops, or being a guest speaker, are some other options. While it's not easy to build a big client base with freelancing, it's still way more doable than trying to make a livable wage from sites like Medium (for most of us).
It felt sad to me that we cheer over a mere $100 for a boosted article, when a freelance editor could earn that amount or more from editing for 2 hours, for instance. A coach could earn way more than a $100 (depending on what they charge) from doing a 1-hr private coaching session. It doesn't have to be several thousand bucks. It could just be $250, for instance.
I'm aiming to do fiction book coaching, and am taking a course for fiction book coaches. This will also include beta reading and sensitivity reading for me. I didn't even know we could be paid for this until now. I've been doing this work for free for years, lol.
Anyway, I know others may disagree, but I'd rather do something lower risk and higher reward like freelancing. I want to tell my fellow writers, that there is no shame whatsoever in teaching, coaching, editing, or freelance writing to make a living. You can always find clients and genres/ subject matters that you enjoy working with. It doesn't have to feel like drudgery. Again, I know this is all easier said than done. But it's still easier than trying to make it big on Medium, and consistently earn enough each month on Medium to pay the bills.
Freelancing could pay much more than just your bills, depending on how established you become. Why settle for mere survival? I feel like Medium has trained us to expect less and value our work less. Despite good intentions. I agree that Medium should be seen as a bonus, rather than a main source of income. Medium sure feels comfortable, but sadly, staying in our comfort zone will not bring home the bacon.
I once had hopes of building a respectable income stream from writing but I realize that it's not going to work. I have zero interest in niche writing because it would become boring and burdensome to me. I used to get paid to write in FTE jobs (with benefits) and that was worth putting up with the boredom of writing about what my employer dictated, but what I've been able to make on my own isn't worth the trade off.
I'm on Substack but so infrequently now that it probably looks like I've quit. There are only so many subscriptions people can afford, so even if I was.churning out consistent quality content I can't imagine a world in which people would choose me over Stephen Fry.
I've thought about writing plays or novels and although it's appealing to think about, I've yet to keep the momentum going long enough to finish any project I start. I have to think about where I go from here. I went through a period of anger and resentment about my experience with Medium, but I've come to realize that it's like complaining about the weather. There's nothing I can do about it, so I either venture forth or stay home.
I left Medium for many reasons. Lack of potential income, and lack of visibility among them. But, I looked around, did some research for a few months and came up with a plan that I'm happy with, and continues to evolve with transmedia storytelling. Here's my plan, laid out before I discovered transmedia storytelling...
(I think it was Michael La Ronn who first gave me the core of the idea for this, but I’ve read so much in the past year on platform creation that I can’t say with certainty if it was him)
Someone (maybe Michael La Ronn, maybe Russell Nohelty?I can’t remember) once said something to the effect of, "Imagine you have a hypothetical workshop in which you are building a stool. It has 3 legs that will support that goal. Break down what those legs are and how you'll reach for them." I know the stool analogy has been overdone, but hear me out. The stool is your platform…how you get your message out. In fiction, your “message” is made up of your stories. The legs of your stool are how you get your message or stories out into the world.
Instead of 3 legs, my stool has 4.
* YouTube
* Substack
* Novel Series & short stories & serial fiction
* Ko-fi
Ko-fi plays into my overall vision by offering supporters a place where they can support my writing once, or as they can afford it, rather than being locked into paying a specific rate like on Substack, or Patreon. I like the choice that Ko-fi provides folks that can't afford or want to pay yearly. It also provides me a place to sell future worldbuilding guides, essay collections, and short story anthologies set in Uclandia, rather than just on Amazon. (I won’t go into all the places I sell to through Draft2Digital that don’t lend themselves easily to that kind of content) I’m also exploring releasing fiction serials through subscription-based Ream.
Essentially, I wanted to earn an income through Medium, so I was testing the platform out in my first year. While there have been moments where I earned a good amount (when I got boosted), it is pretty inconsistent. Even this year, my numbers have been low. I’m still thinking of writing on Medium, but I may have to look elsewhere to find another income stream. Writers need to eat too lol.
Great article Linda . . . I've been meaning to get started on Substack, but I haven't come up with a name for my "niche" which (on your suggestion) would probably do better than something titled "Patricia's musings." In any event, I was never hoping to make a ton of money on Medium. First year was $500 (Woo-Hoo!). I won't say what second year was (it was less). I hoped to supplement my income from my "day job," and make some connections. Medium has more than satisfied that hope! I'm made good friends on Medium (who wudda thought?): Helen Cassidy Page and I meet for brunch regularly, I'm meeting Melinda Blau in New York next week. Others I banter back-and-forth with (isn't it nice that we can end sentences with a preposition now? - As of February this year, Merriam Webster says we can!) You are definitely one of the writers whose writing I admire most! So I have a question: Can I move stories from Medium to Substack?
My current plan: Editing & Boosting on medium, and writing on Substack.
I love the Boost program (and tbh, it pays better than anything else I've ever done on Medium), and I love working with writers to help tell their stories. But for my own work? Substack is a much better place to have planted my flag.
The most difficult aspect of writing to corral is predictability. If I write good consistent prose and stick to high standards can I make a living at this or at least some money? For me the answer has been yes, no and maybe. The reason is that writing is only one side of the equation. The marketplace is another huge factor that is always changing. Readers are within the marketplace and their tastes vary month to month. The platforms we write on is another factor. They are all profit driven and will make changes that affect their bottom line as well as ours, and we don't really have a say in it. We try to adapt. How to bring more control into this area is always a good plan.
There are "over a dozen" curators now. fyi.
I made a profit last year, for the first time, as a writer. I was thrilled. Medium.com was most of it. I'll stay. I like the platform. I also like the way I feel gently "reigned in" by you. I want stuff right now; Ariel gets aggravated at me. I have to remember: we're all in this together, so relax. It will happen.
Your post is great addition to stories about writing on Medium, and why so many of us find it a complete waste of time. I wrote about that here: https://medium.com/@christopherlancette/is-writing-on-medium-mostly-a-complete-waste-of-time-yes-7d8fd12ffbab. I haven't written in ages and see no reason to ever bother again. I've taken the time wasted on Medium and spent it on writing for and pitching mainstream media and literary journals -- both of which are such a better use of my time. You and one other writer are the only reason I haven't cancelled Medium. I read your stuff but that's it. But I do agree with you that if Medium is just an unpaid hobby for people, it may be a good use of time for them. For the rest of us, no. I keep letting my monthly bill renew because it's so cheap as to be irrelevant, and I think maybe I could use the platform to promote my writing from real media outlets, but I haven't bothered. Every minute I waste here is a minute I could be spending trying to write for real media outlets.